Grief
by SgtMac
Summary: Regina and Emma arrive in Neverland too late to save Henry, and together make their way through the five stages of grief. SQ non-graphic eventually. Major character death. Post S2 finale. 5-parter.
1. Denial

**A/N:** In order to help myself clear my mental decks for the next chapter of Safe, I asked for prompts on Tumblr and this is what I got.

As if probably apparent, this five-parter isn't going to be an especially happy piece but it will be a SQ story eventually and hopefully still fairly interesting.

Warnings for this chapter: it's a bit of a downer, yeah.

* * *

_She keeps a lock of hair in her pocket_  
_She wears a cross around her neck_  
_Yes, the hair is from a little boy_  
_And the cross is someone she has not met_  
_Not yet_

**-The Black Crowes/She Talks To Angels**

* * *

**DENIAL.**

It takes them three weeks to finally see the shores of Neverland off in the distance (landfall is about half a day more of ship-travel away, Hook tells them, his expression grave), and though absolutely no one dares to say it, they all know that this is about two and a half weeks too long (and too late) for this horrible little adventure of theirs to end well.

But no one dares to actually admit it.

Instead, they say trite little things such as, "we'll be on our way home in no time" and "Henry will be fine because he's a tough kid" and when doubt really starts to set in for both Regina and Emma during the incredibly cold and wet night before they're due to finally arrive on the beach, David even tries to convince everyone by reminding them that Henry is the son of a Queen and a Savior. Like that should make him invincible.

It should have worked. Should have at least led to a smile or two.

Instead, all it does manage to do is upset Regina and Emma even more.

The moment the well-meaning words are out of David's mouth, and he's smiling that smile of his that's endearing and infuriating in equal measures, Regina bolts to her feet, her spine snapping to attention. "I need air," she announces, her tone cold and oddly empty. She jams her hands into her coat pockets, and with her head held unnaturally high, strides from the room.

"Emma," David says, his eyes wide with confusion. He looks at his daughter and sees the fear stamped into the suddenly apparent lines of her face. "He is okay," her father assures her, his expression one of the kind of righteous certainty that comes from having always found a way to win. "We're going to get to him in time. You have to believe that. We will get to him."

"We don't know that," Emma replies. She doesn't bother adding what her heart has been telling her for the last two and a half weeks; that it's too late for Henry. That maybe it's too late for all of them, and this is just theatre.

"Emma," Snow says, her voice soft and soothing in a way that frankly makes Emma's skin itch right now. "We have to keep hope. We have to believe."

The sheriff opens her mouth to reply, but then snaps it shut and shakes her head. It's the only way that she manages to keep a horrifying sob from breaking its way out because the truth is that she doesn't believe anymore.

Because deep down, she _knows_ that her son is already dead.

"I need to check on Regina," Emma says when she's finally able to speak again. She doesn't allow time for anyone to argue because honestly what could they say to her that would dissuade her. They could offer her more false assurances and empty sayings, but they can't provide her with anything that she can actually put her faith her. They can't give her truth.

She's not honestly sure that she actually wants the truth right now, but she does know (believe, anyway) that she doesn't want any more lies, either.

Which means that there really is only one place left to go.

She stands up, offers the fakest smile she has in her arsenal (the look Hook throws her way tells her that he, at the very least, sees right through her) and then turns and leaves her parents, the pirate and Gold to their dinner.

She's not hungry, anyway.

* * *

"None of this matters," Regina says to her as she steps out onto the deck. Rain is coming down sideways, and it doesn't take but a minute for her to feel the sharp prickling pain of the ice water against her cheeks.

"It does. You're just…you're just afraid. We both are."

"Of course," Regina agrees as she stares out towards the violently crashing waves of the ocean, her eyes never settling for long before jumping away. Her hands are gripped around the railing, her fingers digging deep into the hard wood of it. "But I think we _both_ know that it's more than that."

"I can't believe that…I can't believe that he's gone. I can't believe that this is all pointless," Emma insists. She moves to stand next to Regina, suddenly desperately needing to have someone at least physically in this hell with her.

"This?" Regina questions. "What exactly is this besides a desperate rescue attempt and a last ditch effort by several monsters to be more than that?"

"This is about Henry," Emma says. "It's about saving our son."

Regina says nothing, just gazes out at the water, her fingers tightening.

"Regina…"

"You never were very good at trusting your instincts, were you, dear?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"They say a mother knows when her child is in danger or hurt." Her tone is oddly mild, like she's stating a fact that fascinates her.

"Regina…"

"You know what I feel?" Regina asks, turning to look at Emma, her eyes bubbling with tears that threaten to merge with the rain. "I feel _nothing_."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"No? It either means that Henry is…" she stops, her face contorting for a moment before she forces a cold mask back into place. "Or I have even less connection to the child I raised than I thought I did." She laughs bitterly. "I have never before hoped so dearly for the latter to be true. That's all the hope I have left in me; the hope that my son feels nothing for me because that might explain why there's this pit in my stomach telling me that…"

"It's a myth, Regina," Emma insists. "Nothing more than that."

"It's not. When he was trapped in that mine, I felt…I _felt_ his fear. I…" She locks eyes with Emma, her fear and heartbreak suddenly palpable. It's more than a bit terrifying to see Regina's mask fall away so easily, the terror she feels digging vivid lines across olive flesh as her chin wobbles. "Did you feel his fear then?" she asks. "Can you feel him now? Tell me you can. Please?"

"No," Emma answers, swallowing harshly against her own fear. "Not then."

"But now? Now you can?" Regina's eyes bloom with desperation.

"No," Emma replies carefully. "But that doesn't mean anything. It's just a myth." She says this again, her words far more pointed and urgent.

Because even though she knows the truth, she can't accept it. She might not want any more lies, but she suddenly realized that she needs them.

They both do.

"Regina," Emma tries again, her hand reaching out and closing around the cold flesh of Regina's left forearm "Greg and Tamara kidnapped Henry for a specific reason. This Shadow guy wanted him for something; he's not just going to kill him. That doesn't make any sense."

"I would think by now, my dear, that you would have understand that very little about my world makes any sense," Regina hisses as she pulls away.

"Okay, you're right, but…but we need to believe, okay? We _need_ to."

"You sound like your father. Like your mother. I expect more of you." The words are harsh and almost violent, a spiteful surge of frightened vitriol.

Deep down, Emma knows that Regina's words aren't exactly personal in nature, but something ugly happens inside of her when she hears them; something that feels a whole lot like what snapping twig might sound like.

"And I expect more of you," Emma fires back, trying to forget about the fact that her mother and father _had_ uttered almost the exact same words just a few minutes prior. "I expect you to be strong for him _and_ for me."

"No, what you want is for me to pretend like you are. Like they are."

"No, I just want you to…"

"To what, Emma? What do you want me to do?"

"Believe with me."

"Why?"

"Because it's all I have right now," the sheriff whispers, her shoulders sagging dramatically. "Because if I don't, I have…I have nothing."

"We," Regina corrects, her eyes jumping back to the waves. She shivers a bit, and it's then that Emma notices that the former queen is absolutely soaked to the bone. Her face is red and stung from the cold and rain.

If she doesn't catch some kind of illness from this, it'll be a damned miracle.

Not that it'll matter if Regina is right and…

No, Emma thinks, the voice in her head almost violently vehement.

_No._

She doesn't care what she _thinks_ she knows.

She has to believe.

They both do.

"We," Emma agrees. "_We_ are in this together."

"Fine," Regina says, turning to look at her again. "Then promise me that…promise me that _our_ son is alive. You believe so much? _Promise me_."

"I…"

"Promise me."

Emma knows better. She does. But then the words are spilling out of lips that are chattering from the cold before her brain can catch up, "I promise."

"I'll kill you if this is a lie," Regina says, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"I know." What she almost adds is what she thinks she might do to herself if she's wrong, but the words freeze in her throat because this is hope, right?

Hope, not denial.

Hope.

Faith.

Belief.

All those things that a member of the Charming family is supposed to have.

All those things that she has never had.

They're the most bitter of lies, the most horrible of empty falsities.

And yet they spill so easily forward. Like a knife through warm butter.

She closes her eyes and prays to the same higher being that had allowed her to have been nearly beaten to death as an ten year old child thanks to the alcoholic rages of a man who was supposed to take care of her.

She prays and hopes and believes.

And she makes the same promise to herself. Over and over again.

He'll be okay. He _is_ okay.

He's okay.

It's okay.

It's _all_ going to be okay.

She looks up at Regina and sees the woman staring back at her, her nearly black eyes glazed over with fear and doubt. But maybe a little hope, too.

"We should get below deck," Emma says because she thinks if she doesn't find a way to end this conversation, she'll try to pull back the promise.

"Someone needs to keep an eye out for trouble," Regina reminds her.

"Not tonight," Emma tells her. "Neither one of us can see a damned thing through this rain, and besides, Hook will be up here before long, anyway."

"You would leave getting to Henry to Hook?"

"No, I would leave captaining this ship to him. There's nothing either of us can do besides get sick up here. You said you expected more of me? Well I expect you to be by my side when we storm the island to save Henry, and you sure as hell won't be able to do that if down with pneumonia."

"Even if I were, nothing would stop me from–"

"Maybe you think that, but I've been there, and I know how weak the body can get, Regina. I would think after what you just went through with Greg and Tamara, you would, too."

"And yet here I am. Still alive. Still standing," Regina snaps back, her eyes blazing with pride and anger. This is a woman who doesn't know how to not fight back even when maybe it would be better not to.

"Yeah, okay, but even you have limits. Henry can't afford those and neither can I. Now we are going downstairs and we are both going to bed because in the morning, we are going to find our son. Alive."

She turns then and walks away.

All the while hoping that Regina will be right behind her.

She is.

**TBC...**

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**I can be found on Tumblr at sgtmac7. The next chapter should be up tomorrow. Grazie!  
**


	2. Anger

**A/N: This one kicks up the pain a bit. Sorry.  
**

**Warnings: Major character death, profanity, attempted murder, violence and well, just general hurt.**

* * *

_I never knew what enough was_  
_Until I'd had more than my share_  
_Then I let the darkness in_  
_It was then I lost the dare_  
_It was then I lost the day**  
Jonatha Brooke/Inconsolable  
**_

* * *

**ANGER.**

Morning comes both too quickly and too slowly for all of the restless and ultimately sleepless passengers aboard the _Jolly Roger_. When the sun finally breaks over the horizon, lifting high up into the sky, they're within rowing distance of the shores of Neverland, and suddenly all anyone feels is fear.

"All right, then," Hook says as he glances out at the fogged over beach. "We can row it in, but it gives them time to see us and that puts us at an operational disadvantage since we'll be fighting from within a wee dinghy."

"We'll transport," Regina states with a tone of absolute authority. "Rumple and I have enough magic between the two of us to get all of us over there."

"What about the _Jolly_ _Roger_?" David asks. "Can we keep the same whatever it is on it that we've been using to keep her from being seen?"

"We can," Rumple states. He's oddly subdued, but Emma convinces herself that that in and of itself means very little; he's a strange little man, anyway.

"Then do it," Hook orders, his eyebrow lifting when Rumple tosses him a look of pure disgust and derision meant to tell him that he doesn't take orders from a wife-stealing pirate. "Unless you would prefer them to light our only way back home ablaze. In which case, please feel free to–"

"Not now, guys," Emma murmurs. "Cast the spell, Gold. I want my son."

"It's already cast," Rumple states. "We're just not removing it. However, in order for me to keep my energies properly and mostly focused there, you'll need to assist the Queen in getting us over to the island."

"Me? I don't –"

"I'll assist you," Regina says crisply, her jaw ticking anxiously.

"Wait a minute," David starts. "You're going to teach her –"

"_David_," Snow soothes, her hand in his. "Whatever it takes is what we do." It's the first time that Emma has ever heard the sound of honesty in her mother's voice. There are no false hopes being presented there like some kind of absurd edict from above, just the laid bare truth of the situation.

It unnerves Emma and drives home for her just how serious this is.

Just how horrifying this could end up for all of them.

"Right," David agrees, his blue eyes conflicted and unsettled.

"Step close," Regina orders before adding an impatient snap of her fingers.

"Do we need to hold hands?" Hook asks, and maybe it's meant to lighten the mood, but if so, it fails rather spectacularly because no one is laughing.

None of this is the least bit funny and even the mildest of gallows' humor feels inappropriate right now because Henry is only eleven and there are two terrified women standing next to each other who both feel like they're on a doomed mission that will end in them finding their son's body.

"Not everyone," Regina states, her tone sharp and bored. Emma thinks she hears the sound of somewhat strained breathing as well, but before she can focus too much on that, the former queen barrels ahead with, "The rest of you will want to try and envision the beach in your minds to assist us with focus, but I will need Miss Swan's hand in order to draw out her magic."

"Draw out my –"

"Give me your hand, Emma," Regina says, her voice strangely gentle.

The sheriff doesn't hesitate; her hand shoots out and curls tightly around Regina's. What she feels there is soft but unusually sweaty. A glance up at the former queen's face confirms for her that Regina is terribly pale.

Almost sickly one might say.

Reckless exposure to cold wet weather will do that.

A glare from Regina – one that clearly says "don't start" stills her tongue. Instead, quietly, her nerves blazing like she's on uppers, "What now?"

"Close your eyes and concentrate on the beach. Visualize all of us being there instead of here. And remember _why_ we need to be there."

"That's it?"

"No, that's _all_," Regina corrects. "That's all you need to see in your mind."

"Give in to what you're feeling," Rumple suggests.

"What I'm –"

"What you're both feeling," he corrects.

Emma watches as Regina's eyes slice over towards Rumple, anger lighting within them for a few seconds before she returns her cool gaze to Emma. "He's right," she says. "The more you feel, the more accurate you'll be."

"Got it," the sheriff says with a sharp nod. "Okay, let's do this then." She looks at her parents who are standing just outside of the circle. A soft meant to be reassuring smile from her mother lets her know that they're ready.

But they're not.

* * *

They arrive on the beach in a dizzying whirl of bluish-purple smoke (apparently this is the color you get when a Savior and a Queen mix magic). The moment Emma's feet settle upon the sand, she doubles over towards the nearest bit of greenery that she can find and starts retching.

"It gets better," Rumple assures her with a smirk. "With practice."

"That's just…that's just awesome," Emma mutters as she wipes at her mouth. She feels her mother's hand on her elbow, helping her straighten up.

"Are you all right?" Snow asks.

She doesn't answer, instead sweeping her eyes towards Regina who is gazing up the beach, towards plumes of smoke that rise above the trees.

"What do you see?"

"He's up there," Regina replies, her voice so devastatingly soft.

"How do you know?" David asks, frowning as he gazes up the beach.

Emma ignores him, instead striding towards Regina and moving to stand in front of her so that they can look at each other. "You can feel him now, right?" she asks. There's desperate hope in her voice, urgent and pleading.

"No," Regina says simply, dully. "I can't. I still feel…nothing." She steps around Emma, then, and starts up the beach, the high heels of her not right for Neverland boots sinking deeply into the sand and troubling her steps.

"Regina, wait. Wait!"

If the former queen hears her, she shows no sign of it. She keeps moving, her gait awkward and unbalanced and her breathing harsh. She coughs as she walks, but then keeps going, getting faster with each stride. That she's clearly coming down with – or already has – some illness is lost on her.

Emma looks at her parents, at Rumple and at Hook, and then with a shake of her head, she races after Regina, knowing that she needs to be beside her. Knowing that they have to deal with this – whatever this is – together.

"Regina."

"He's there," Regina says again as she comes to an abrupt halt in front of a thick row of greenery. The smoke is just up ahead, completely visible now.

"Okay, but wait…wait a sec."

"Why?"

"Because we need to be careful. If we just barge in without looking first –"

"I don't care," Regina snarls in response, the cold gaze in her darkly furious eyes almost challenging. "I want my son. Come with me or don't." She flicks her hand and a fireball forms there, large and brilliantly orange.

"All right," Emma sighs. "Then let's –"

She doesn't get the chance to finish her sentence before Regina is surging forward, breaking through the dense greenery that is separating them from the camp of those who had taken their son.

Separating them from Henry.

The sound she hears next will stay with her for the rest of her life. It will become part of every nightmare that she will ever have and it'll wake her in a cold sweat and leave her sobbing into her pillows like a small child.

And it's just a scream – just a guttural shriek ripped from Regina's lungs.

No, it's not just that; it's the sound of loss beyond description.

It's loud and hysterical and gut wrenching beyond the telling of it.

Her brain shorting out, Emma breaks through the bushes, and comes up behind the former queen who is standing ramrod straight, her now extinguished hands clenched tightly at her sides, her body shaking like she's in the middle of some kind of fit. "Regina," she breathes. "What –"

That's when she sees him.

That's when she sees their son.

He's tied to a tree with thick vines, his small muscle-less arms strung up painfully high above his unnaturally lolling (his neck is broken, her mind screams at her) head, his green eyes glassy and staring forever forward, but no longer seeing anything at all.

His face gray and bruised and his lips cold and blue.

"Henry," she gasps, vaguely aware that Regina is still screaming, the sound hoarse and broken, like it's trying to choke its way out of her. Emma claps a hand over her own mouth to stop a similar cry from breaking loose.

There's yellow smoke rising up from a campfire a few feet away from the tree, the smell sweet and cloying. It clogs Emma's throat and she gasps both for air and for grounding. Her stomach rolls and she pitches forward as if to throw up again, but nothing comes out. Her body shakes and for a moment her vision goes completely black beneath the hideous weight of her shock.

"Oh my God," she hears her mother say as she arrived. "Henry. No. No!"

"Jesus," David adds on, and she feels his hand on her arm, his fingers closing, tightly – protectively - around her. She thinks she hears Hook mutter an equivalent kind of curse, but all the noise just fades into the background.

Which is when it occurs to her then that Regina is no longer screaming. No longer standing, either. She's crumbled to the ground, her knees scraping brutally against the dirt. Because she not a Queen here, not a Mayor.

Just a broken Mother.

They both are.

She pulls away from David and steps hesitantly towards Regina, her badly shaking hand extended as if to try to offer the former queen…something. Her mind whirls and twists and a thousand things go through her head.

Most they come down to one simple thought, though: This isn't happening.

It can't be.

This is a just a fucking awful nightmare and in a few minutes, she's going to wake up screaming in own bed, but then everything will be okay.

Only Henry is still staring and until she closes his eyes, he always will be.

"Regina," she hears, and she's mildly surprised that the name isn't coming from her lips. "Regina, you have to stop," the person – her mother – says.

She pulls her eyes away from Henry and back towards Regina, and that's when she sees the bright purple energy pulsing around her. That's when she sees the way Regina is clenching her fists, her neck tightly corded and her face contorted into an expression of grief and fury and anger and God…

Regina's going to fucking blow and kill them all.

For a moment – the briefest of them – she actually considers letting Regina do it because Henry is tied to a tree and he's just eleven and there aren't words for how very very wrong and horrible and just not right this is.

There aren't words for the gaping hole that she feels within her heart.

For the pain she knows will never go away.

So maybe she lets Regina go boom and then it can all be over.

It can all be –

But then she's jumping forward and wrapping her arms as tight as she possibly can around Regina's shuddering shimmering body and this is either suicide or it's some kind of frantic support or it's the madness of both.

"Don't," she whispers, her mouth close to Regina's ear. "Please."

Regina's only response is to scream again and then she feels the surge go through her body, and she thinks that this is absolutely the end because for a moment, she's just hot, hot, hot and everything is burning. She hears her mother call out for her, but there's sweat pouring down her and Regina and there's magic and power pulsating like a live electrical wire between them.

"Stop," she pleads, her teeth chattering not from the cold but from the pain of so much heat and energy. She thinks that she's about to explode supernova style. "You're hurting me. You're hurting yourself. Please. Stop."

She thinks she hears what sounds like a hiccuping sob, the kind of sound that someone makes when their body is incapable of anything else. She thinks she hears Regina call out for Henry and then do it again and again.

She tightens her hold and presses her full frame against Regina, practically wrapping herself around the former queen as she pulls in all the magic that she can. It hurts so very badly, but it hurts less than her heart does.

And then just like that, it's over.

Regina sags forward, her head in her hands, sobbing violently.

"Emma," David calls out. "Emma are you –"

"I'm fine. We're fine." It's the most grotesque of lies but it's what she has.

She's spent her whole life with those words on her lips because it's always been what people have wanted – needed - her to say. She never thinks to say anything else even when it's so plainly obvious how much of a lie it is.

She hears Regina gasping and gulping and breathing like she can't manage to find a way to pull air into her lungs. Emma feels a violent shudder go through Regina, almost a convulsion and she thinks that this must be the aftershocks of a magical explosion that had only been halted thanks to…

Well honestly, Emma can't even begin to guess how she'd managed to absorb Regina's magic nor does she really know why she'd done what she'd done. _Had_ it been suicide? Had it been the need to save Regina once again? Had it been the need to save everyone from getting blown to hell and back?

Or had it just been the instinct that has continuously drawn her towards Regina even in the very worst of situations.

Perhaps even more now.

She has no idea nor any care to really think of any of these things right now.

Her eyes jump up towards Henry. "Get him down from there."

She'd do it herself but she's pretty damned sure that she couldn't stand if she tried to right now; it's not every day you absorb about a million magical volts into your body. She's vibrating with the magic, her jaw grinding.

"Don't you touch him," Regina growls out suddenly, her head snapping up, her eyes blazing a bright furious purple. "I will kill you if you try." The rage is sudden and sharp and whatever comfort she'd been deriving from Emma, whatever she'd been allowing, she rejects it now, her anger blisteringly hot.

"Regina," Snow starts, her eyes wide like she knows exactly what's about to happen here, and perhaps – considering their shared history – she does.

"He's my son and you will not lay a hand on him."

"He's my grandson," Snow pleads. "Please."

It's like a switch gets flipped in Regina's brain, like she suddenly remembers exactly how it is that Snow White is related to Henry. She snaps around and glares at Emma, the purple in her eyes deepening to a disturbing violet.

"You lied to me," she growls, her voice as low as Emma has ever heard it. "You promised that he would be all right. That he was. You promised me."

"I…" Emma stops short, the tears cascading down her cheeks, and her face screwing up into an expression of horrified grief. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, but you will be, my dear," Regina assures her, her typically beautiful face contorting into a grotesque snarl. This is every bit the very worst of the Evil Queen. "I promised _you_ that I would kill you if you lied to me and I will."

"Then do it. Kill me," Emma says, her jaw tightening and her shoulders squaring as if preparing for a fight. "Or don't because he was my son, too."

It's only because Hook manages to grab the Queen as she lunges forward that Emma is able to take another breath. The rage she sees in Regina's eyes is unlike anything else that she has ever seen before.

This is the pain of a loss that can't ever be compensated for.

This is the loss of all hope.

Emma falls backwards, a broken and damaged Savior realizing that she doesn't actually have the strength to fight. That she doesn't want to.

"You lied," Regina screams at her as she struggles against Hook.

"I'm sorry," Emma repeats, her voice just barely a whisper. She wants to say that it'd been a promise that she'd never wanted to make, but why bother?

"Stop this," Hook says to Regina, his voice oddly gentle. "You want to kill Swan, do it later, but not while your boy is up there. Not while he can see."

"He can't see anymore," Regina hisses. "Let me go or I'll -"

"No."

She fights against him, and perhaps if she focused and used her magic, she could even get away from him, but right now, he's stronger than her.

Or at least he is with help.

She can feel the touch of Rumple's magic upon her. It's light for once, simply meant to keep her in place. It's not unlike the magic that the Blue Fairy had once used upon her to capture her. Her eyes meet with him and she's almost pleading him to release her because he should understand.

And doesn't she have the right to kill the woman who had…

Who had…who had promised her…promised her that Henry would be…

But he's not. She'd lied and he's…and he's on the tree.

She suddenly sags heavily against Hook. "I should have killed you when I had the chance," she says, though she's not actually even looking over at Emma. Her glassy unfocused eyes are staring towards Henry's body.

"Yeah, well, like Hook said," Emma says, her voice sounding so very tired and broken. "You'll have plenty of time to make me pay later, but for now, I'm getting our son down from that goddamned tree." Anger floods her body and her mind then because how dare Regina blame her for this. "Now you can sit there and scream at me about how you're going to kill me or you can help me; it's your choice, Regina. For once, make the right fucking one."

Maybe it's unfair, but then again, she thinks, if it hadn't been for them being down in the cave trying to save Regina's worthless life, Henry never would have been kidnapped and he wouldn't be here now…he wouldn't be…

Swallowing back guilt and rage and the sudden shame of her fury towards Regina, Emma stands up then, her legs wobbling and her ankle twisting. There's sharp pain again, but she doesn't feel it. She can tell David is at her side, but she barely sees him. She moves step after step towards the tree.

"We can do this," David tells her. "You don't have to."

"I do." She looks over at Regina. "He's our son. This is something that _we_ need to do." She takes a breath and then holds out her hand.

Regina feels Hooks arms release their hold on her and then Rumple's magic dissipates into the cold air like oily smoke. They certainly both know that it is a risk to let her go because she's still vibrating and anger doesn't just drain away within her; it festers and builds and boils and explodes.

It causes curses to be cast and lives to be lost and…

But oh God, Henry is staring right at her.

Even if he isn't.

And she won't kill the woman who had birthed him in front of him.

She doesn't take Emma's hand; she can't and she won't.

But she will help her bring Henry down.

It takes them almost ten minutes to remove his small broken body from the tree, and then for far too long after that, they just sit with him between him.

It occurs to both of his mothers to deny the other the right to hold him.

It occurs to both of them the need to claim ownership over him.

But they're both so damned tired and shattered and even though they'd would like to rage against the other, they simply lack the energy to do so.

"Are we to bury him here?" Hook asks, his tone somber and respectful.

"No, not here," Regina says as she stands up. She doesn't even bother to brush the sand off of herself. It just doesn't matter right now. "Storybrooke. That's where he'd want to be so that's where I'll take him to."

"But not in your vault, right?" Emma counters. "Not there. He's not –"

"My family. Yes, my dear, you have made that quite–"

"That's not what I was going to say. I…I need to be able to see him." She swallows hard. "Please. Please don't…please." She looks up at her parents for support, but just as David is opening his mouth to speak, her mother is shaking her head as if to tell him that this isn't his decision to make.

"We bring him home," Regina says again, not willing to extend anything beyond that. Frankly, the idea of allowing Emma anything is absurd.

Frankly, the idea of allowing Emma to get home to Storybrooke is as well.

The sensible part of her – what little of that there is right now – reminds her that she'll likely have to go through Snow and David and Hook and Rumple to kill Emma, but the Evil Queen – the one who had raged past the point of sanity, the one who had destroyed everything in her path even at the cost of her own soul – assures her that she can do this. That it doesn't matter if she can't because what's the very worst that can happen to her now?

Death?

Well that seems something of a mercy right about now.

"Home," David repeats. "What about the ones who did this?" He glances around, frowning as he takes in the seemingly abandoned camp.

"They're long gone now," Rumple says, following David's gaze. "I expect the Shadow is as well; he got what he wanted."

"And what did he want?" Emma demands. "Why did he want Henry so badly? And why did he…why did he do this?" She doesn't ask the next question which is what kind of monster do you have to be to do something like this to a child. Considering her company, she's frankly afraid to know.

"I expect that he needed your boy's life force," Hook tells her, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. "Probably to sustain himself."

"He could have had anyone. Why Henry?" Emma presses as stands up so that she's standing just a few inches away from Regina.

"I don't know," Hook admits. "But as much as I'm sure all of you would like to make him pay for this, I would suggest that we don't stick around to do so; he assuredly derived some degree of power from what he did."

"He's no match for me," Regina states, her lip curling up.

"I'm afraid that's not the case," Rumple tells her, and then says no more.

"I don't care if it is or isn't," Regina says and Emma has an unnerving feeling of déjà vu, remembering how the former queen had said that just before she'd broken through the shrubbery and found…well what she'd found.

"It's suicide," David states. "That's not what Henry would want."

She growls and snaps around, her eyes lighting up again. "How dare you –"

She never finishes the sentence; in one fluid motion, Emma closes the distance between them with a sharply delivered left hook to an unprepared Regina. It settles across her jaw with a loud hard crack that's both satisfying and horrifying, and then the brunette is tumbling to the ground, her eyes rolling back into the back of her head, and the strength leaving her body.

"All right, then," Hook says, one of his eyebrows up.

Emma regards him for a moment and then gazes back down at Regina.

She hates this woman so very much.

She doesn't hate her at all.

She wants this woman to pay dearly for what's happened here today.

She wants to wrap her arms around her and cry with her for their son.

She wants to rip Regina's heart out and crush it like she'd read about the former queen doing to others. Like she'd done to Graham.

She wants to rip her own heart out and stow it away in a box as Cora had hers simply so that can find a way to not the feel the pain that she is.

The very thought of this disgusts her beyond words.

"She wasn't going to listen to reason," Emma says finally, and then when no one says anything to counter her (and really, how could they), she continues with, "It's time to go home." She can feels the tears rushing down her cheeks, sliding onto her collar drop by drop. "We go home." Her eyes drift over towards Henry's body, his small frame covered up by jackets and coats, his arms gathered together across his chest. "All of us."

"Emma, maybe we should –" David starts.

"Leave her here?" Emma finishes for him. She'd known the moment she'd knocked Regina out – for her own good, she'd told her self – that the suggestion to abandon Regina to the island would arise. "No."

David shifts around anxiously, his gaze falling upon Regina's unconscious form, which lies so very close to Henry's body. "She threatened to kill you for…Emma, she's going to…you don't know what she's like when she's –"

This time, it's Emma who says it. "I don't care. I don't. She _is_ his mother, and he would want me to try to take care of her. You said he wouldn't have wanted her to go on a suicide mission, and that's true, but he would want…he would want us to try to get…" she puts her hand into her hair.

"Okay, then that's what we do," Snow says. Then, to Rumple, her voice authoritative and confident even beneath the almost violent shake of emotion, "Take the shield off the ship, and use your magic to get us back; Emma doesn't have enough without Regina to do it and even if she did…"

"It'll expose the ship," Rumple reminds her, though it seems clear that he's not actually objecting so much as reminding her. In fact, Rumple seems as unsettled and bothered by this whole situation as the rest of the party does.

Well perhaps not quite as much, but still, it's clear that he's been affected.

"We'll take that chance," Snow states. "Please."

"Very well. Bring the Queen within the circle, and yes, someone will need to be touching her being that she won't be able to focus her own thoughts."

"I got her," Snow says, reaching for Regina. To Emma: "You hold Henry."

Emma nods. She drops down, and then reaches out for her son's body. She pulls him against her chest, his brown hair flopping against her.

His eyes are closed now, at least. She'd done it herself.

He can sleep.

He shouldn't be.

But he can. Or maybe…maybe…

She feels her heart surge, just a small kernel of hope exploding within her and she leans in and kisses him on the forehead, whispering his name as she tries to coax warmth back into his cold skin. She leaves her lips there for several long seconds, wondering if she has enough magic to bring him back.

She doesn't apparently and this is enough to steal the air from her lungs.

She's crying when the magic swirls around her.

* * *

She's crying when she appears on the _Jolly Roger, _too.

It only when she finally collapses into a restless sleep that the tears stop.

But then she dreams.

She dreams of a boy with messy orange hair and a smile that would light up any room if it weren't so malicious and cold.

He thanks her and tells her that Henry's sacrifice won't be forgotten. He tells her that he's strong now, better than he's been in a long time.

All because of Henry.

She tells him that she will come for him eventually. She says that she's bad at promises sometimes, but this one he can count on.

However long it takes, whatever it takes; he will pay for this.

He assures her that he'll be waiting for both of them.

Assuming he chuckles, that the Queen lets her live.

"You better hope she doesn't," Emma retorts as the dream begins to fade away. The last thing she sees of him – of Peter Pan – is his glowing eyes.

She's pretty damned sure that she'll remember those eyes for the rest of her life. However long or short that be. And if it's long, she promises herself that she'll remember them until she finds Pan and yanks them from him.

It's this very thought – the sheer violence and horror of it – that brings her to her waking senses with a loud sob and Henry's name on her lips.

She feels arms around her, then. She feels her mother's body against her, and then all of the anger is just bleeding into hurt and she begins to cry again. "Mom," she whimpers because even though she's only had this woman as her mother for about a year now, she needs this connection right now more than she ever has. "Mom, I lost him. I lost him. I lost him."

Snow doesn't say that it will all be okay. Because it won't be.

Because Henry is dead and Regina is so goddamned broken.

And Emma's pretty sure that she is, too.

Because Henry is wrapped up in blankets in one of the crew quarters, his body magically bound from decay thanks to a somber Rumple.

And the woman who had raised him and loved him so very deeply is in a bed across the room, an ugly bruise blooming on her jaw, and sweat glistening on her brow as whatever illness had been encroaching on her earlier in the day presents itself with a cold and uncaring vengeance.

Vengeance.

Regina had offered up her life to break the cycle of it.

They'd saved Regina because it'd been the right thing to do.

Emma has no idea what right and wrong means anymore. She feels such anger inside of herself, but the sadness overwhelms that. Part of her wants to get up and walk over to Regina's bed and strangle her in her sleep, but the other part is ridiculously thankful that she's not in this alone.

Even if her companion in devastating loss is the Evil Fucking Queen.

Slowly, her tears dry up and then she's hiccupping and gasping. And scraping for anything that feels like something she can grab onto.

Any kind of life support.

Right now, it's her mother.

She hears Regina whimper in pain even as she herself curls against her mother's warm protective body.

She hears Regina cry out for their son.

"I won't let her hurt you," Snow assures her as she follows Emma's gaze over towards the fitfully sleeping former queen.

"She won't," Emma says as she lifts her head up to look at Regina's shaking body, and it's weird how suddenly very certain she is of this.

"Emma…"

"She won't. She doesn't realize yet because she's so angry and hurt and…" she stops for a moment, coming close to breaking again. Once she's forced composure on herself again, she continues with, "She's her own."

Snow startles at the implication, eyes terrified and wide. "You think –"

"He was her everything," Emma says softly. "Mine, too, but…he would want me to protect her from herself and for him…for him, I will."

"Okay," Snow says as she leans in and presses a kiss to her temple.

She drops her head back against Snow, then. So very young and lost.

"Don't leave me."

"I wasn't planning on it. Do you want to talk –"

"Not tonight. I just want to…I don't want to feel anything." She doesn't say that she's not completely sure that she'll ever be able to speak of this.

"I'm not sure that's possible. For either of you."

Emma's face screws up for a moment, and she thinks maybe another crying fit is about to hit, but then the exhaustion grabs her again and halts it.

"I just want to sleep," she says.

"Then close your eyes," Snow urges. "I'll be here when you wake up."

Emma's eyelids flutter. "If she wakes up…"

"She won't. Not for a few hours, anyway. Gold put her under a light sleeping spell or something like that. Just something to help her rest."

"She doesn't look like she's resting very well," Emma murmurs, but then her eyes are closing again and her breathing is slowing down once more.

"No," Snow agrees, her hand rubbing circles on Emma's back.

It's only when Snow is sure that Emma is sleeping and Regina is as well that she allows herself to feel the pain and loss of Henry's death.

It's only then that she allows her own tears to come.

**TBC…**

* * *

**I wish I could tell you that this is the worst of it, but well, I think we all know that it's going to get worse before it gets better.**

**Let me know your thoughts. Once again, I can be found at sgtmac7 on Tumblr. The next chapter should be up in a few days.  
**


	3. Bargaining

_A/N: Apologies for the delays - here's chapter 3. Thanks for all of the kind words of support; they are very much appreciated.  
_

_Warnings: Some language, mild violence, just a lot of hurt. Sorry for this.  
_

* * *

_It's a cold day in a cruel world  
I really wished I could have saved you  
Then who would save me from myself?  
Right now, well, I could use a stiff drink  
To kill the pain that's deep inside my bones_

**Ballad For Dead Friends/Dashboard Prophets  
**

* * *

**_BARGAINING._**

_He's an almost natural fit in her arms, and she's sure that she's never held something quite as perfect. He's so small and delicate and beautiful, and she can't take her eyes off his tiny perfection. He's her son now, she realizes and it's this terrifying thought that makes her jerk her head up just in time to see Mr. Gold making his way towards her front door._

"_Wait! Where are you going? Are you leaving me –"_

"_Alone with you new son?" he asks in a tone that reminds her uncomfortably of the man he'd once been. "Yes, indeed. Contrary to your beliefs, Madam Mayor, I do run a business that doesn't involve your needs."_

"_What am I supposed to do with him?"_

"_That's not really my problem, now is it, dearie? You asked me to find you a child and I have. He's your boy now; I suggest you try to love him."_

"_What the hell is that supposed to mean?"_

"_Far be it from me to point out the obvious here, but well, loving is not something you do especially well. Perhaps, this was a mistake. Perhaps, we should have started you off with something simple. Like a goldfish, maybe?"_

"_Are you saying that I'm actually incapable of loving this child?"_

"_Not at all. I'm just wondering if you think that you are considering the way you're holding him. I understand you're supposed to bring him close to you, not keep him away from your body like he's something that might bite."_

"_And what do you know of raising children?"_

"_Not a thing," he says with a strange sadness. "Never had one of my own."_

"_Exactly. Our business here is concluded, Mr. Gold; you may go."_

"_Quite right you are. But before I do, since I can assume this means that you'll be keeping him, what do you plan on naming the boy?"_

"_Not that it's any of your particular business, but his name is Henry."_

* * *

The first thing that she hears when she opens her eyes is the soft sound of beeps. Steady, oddly rhythmic. Her vision clears and she sees white walls and a glass door and a curtain and…this is a hospital, she realizes with a start. And she's in a bed, dressed in a gown and there's a tube up her nose.

Well, more in it than up it, but it's there just the same. It's unsettling to feel oxygen being pushed into her like this; she'd only experienced it one other time – when Emma Swan had rescued her from Gold's fire at City Hall.

She wonders vaguely if she's just waking up from that now, if maybe all of the other half-formed thoughts and memories that are swimming through her confused brain are just fragments of dreams that she'd had while she'd been unconscious. Though she doesn't yet know why, she feels her heart soar at even the idea of this. Strange because the last thing she recalls…

Well she's not really sure, really.

Had she actually passed out after the fire?

No. No, she hadn't.

She blinks and looks around the room. She's in the same room that David Nolan had spent twenty-eight years in, but there's a curtain cutting off view of her, preventing anyone from just staring at her like she's on display.

Which is great but that doesn't answer why she's here or how –

Her brain clicks and then clicks again as memories start to flood in and reality starts to stomp away the cobwebs and shadows that had descended.

What she initially sees is a memory of her first moments with Henry. How he'd looked up at her with such wonderfully bright eyes. How she'd held his hand and squeezed it and he'd squeezed back and she'd been head over quite literal heels in love with him for no other reason than because he'd been perfect.

But then the memory is fading and others of him are forcing their way forward. Some wonderful and some horrible.

One terrible one in particular.

He's tied to a tree and his neck…

No. No. No.

This can't be…it has to be a nightmare.

It has to be.

But it's not because her jaw aches just enough to remind her that Emma Swan had knocked her unconscious a few minutes after they'd found Henry.

After she'd declared her intention to hurt down and massacre those responsible for what had happened…for Henry's…for his death.

It's real, she realizes with a sharp gasp.

It's real and he's dead and…oh God.

She puts a hand over her mouth, but she needn't bother because suddenly everything is just bubbling back to the surface and she lets out a scream that even the people back in the Enchanted Forest should be able to hear.

* * *

_There aren't enough books for all of this. There isn't enough knowledge in the world to help her not screw this up. It's two in the morning and he's finally asleep and she has tears running down her face because she's an absolute disaster at this and what the hell had she been thinking?_

_She can't do this._

_He's too small and too fragile and she's the Evil Queen and what right does she have to try to show a child the good in the world when she herself is still looking for it with wide eyes and greedy hands?_

_The books say do this and do that and she's trying all of this things but sometimes he looks at her like he can tell that she's just faking it._

_And he's only three months old._

_What will he think of her when his eyes really open? Will he see her as the monster that she actually is? Will he reject her as everyone else has?_

_No, she tells herself, this is all worrying over nothing._

_He will love her because she loves him._

_That will be enough for both of them._

_She looks over at the crib, over his peacefully sleeping body._

_She swears that she will do right by him. Swears that he will never know a day where he isn't happy and loved._

_She swears that he will never want for a moment of affection._

_Whatever else happens, he will be loved._

* * *

"You're awake," a quiet voice says from across the room.

"So it would seem," Regina answers dully without looking over towards the now open glass door. Whale and his nurses have been coming in and out of the room for the last hour, and though she's made it quite clear that she wants for them to either all die or simply go away, they continue to return.

And not let her leave.

Not that she hadn't already tried to get up and walk out on her own, but apparently, she's been almost grievously ill for the last week, and her body just isn't in the mood to cooperate. Two steps away from her bed had been too much and the only thing that had prevented her from a humiliating fall towards Whale's feet had been the surprisingly strong hand of the fairy named Nova as it had settled over her forearm and held her upright.

"Your Majesty," the shy fairy had suggested with an awkward shrug of her shoulders. "Perhaps you should stay down for a bit longer."

"Perhaps," Regina had said, not because she actually did agree, but because the idea of collapsing in front of Whale had been unimaginable to her.

Even in her emotionally numbed out state, her pride refuses to allow a man who had assisted in her downfall to see her weakened and broken.

Now, propped up against several overstuffed pillows, her eyes on the far wall of the room, all she wishes for is the nothingness of unconsciousness.

Instead, she gets Emma Swan.

"How did we get home?" Regina asks after a moment, not that she actually cares. The particulars of how they'd gotten back to Storybrooke are of little importance to her; nothing beyond the memory that has scratched a hole through the middle of her already badly damaged heart means anything.

"Hook traded for a bean. Apparently the last one isn't really the last one."

"It rarely is," Regina replies, more automatic than anything else.

"Yeah," Emma replies, shoving her hands into her pockets. Regina's eyes flicker over towards the younger woman for a moment and she takes in the deep exhaustion dug into every line of her face. Emma looks sad and pathetic, and if Regina could feel pain for anyone but herself, she thinks she might for this woman because she thinks that maybe Emma understands.

Maybe…

But no.

Because biology aside, Henry hadn't been Emma Swan's son.

Henry had been hers.

_Hers_.

And if Emma Swan had never come to town, none of this would have ever happened. And why couldn't she have just left well enough alone?

It's a somewhat ridiculous question considering the fact that Emma had asked it – screamed it at - her it just a year prior. Right after she'd nearly fatally poisoned Henry with a turnover meant for his birth mother. She might laugh if there was any humor – bitter or otherwise – left within her.

"Why are you here?" Regina finally asks, her voice flat and tired. She imagines that there are drugs pumping through her veins because she feels so very numb and emotionless and that's just a thousand kinds of wrong.

Because Henry is dead and certainly she's angry and vengeful and…

And someone has to pay.

Someone _has_ to.

Someone will, the darkest part of her assures her. Someone _will_.

But right now, all she can think about is closing her eyes and sleeping until she can find a way to wake back up and have this nightmare be over.

"I guess I just wanted to make sure you were…okay," Emma mumbles. The sheriff shifts herself anxiously, looking like she can't seem to make her body cooperate with her. Somewhere in the back of Regina's exhausted mind, she's aware of the fact that she hasn't seen this level of nervous anxiety from Emma since almost the first day that they'd met over a year prior.

"I'm not okay, Miss Swan," Regina snaps back. "I'll never be okay again."

"I know." Emma blinks rapidly, like she's trying to push back tears.

"Then what possible reason could you have to be here?" Regina demands.

"I'm here because…because Henry would have wanted me to be here for you," Emma says softly. "He would have wanted both of us to –"

"Don't you _dare_ speak to me about what he would have wanted," Regina growls out, and she finds herself both relieved – and oddly a bit horrified - to feel anger winding its way through her body. "You don't know and no matter what you tell yourself, Miss Swan, you never actually knew my child."

Emma swallows. "Maybe not," she admits and her face contorts horribly for a moment – long enough for Regina to be sure that Emma's about to start crying – before neutralizing into something that just looks broken again. "But I know he loved you and…and I believe he loved me, too. And…"

She trails off, shaking her head. Her hand lifts to her eyes and balls for a moment so as to scrub moisture away from her eyes. It's more than a little unsettling to see Emma so emotionally exposed; this is a woman who'd come into town with a shrug and a wall high enough to keep out almost everyone, but right now, she's crumbling and can't hide that fact.

But Regina just glares coldly back at her and the more pain she sees written across Emma's features, the more the anger sparks within her because what right does this woman have to be collapsing right now?

What right does she have to be bleeding out like she is?

She doesn't, Regina tells herself. She has no right to this pain. None.

"I'm sorry," Emma whispers.

"Go away," Regina replies. "I don't want you here, and I don't want whatever the hell you think…I don't want _anything_ from you."

Emma nods her head slowly, robotically. Then, in a voice that's almost inaudible, "His funeral is tomorrow. Eleven. If you want, I can –"

"You can't. I'll find my own way there."

"Right." Emma turns and heads towards the door. She stops, a hand settled on the cool glass, but doesn't face Regina when she says in a shaky tone, "If I'd known this would happen, if I'd know…I never would have stayed."

She doesn't wait for a reply, just walks through the door.

* * *

"_Henry!"_

_Regina snaps around, her dark eyes wide with fear. She's standing in the middle of her kitchen, every muscle in her body rigid and tense._

_Because her not even yet a year old son is missing._

"_Henry!" she screams out again. Absently, she knows that this is crazy because he's not speaking yet – nothing more than grunts that sound like gibberish and the word "momma". Which warms her insides when she thinks about it, but right now, even that does little to cool her fear._

_She turns around in her kitchen, eyes jumping around. Her hands are clenching and unclenching as absolute terror surges through her._

_She wonders if one of her enemies – maybe Rumple - could have woken up from the curse somehow, and if he had, had he come for Henry. Had he –_

_She hears a soft sound. It sounds like a giggle._

_And not like one of Rumple's._

_Her brow wrinkling in confusion, she follows the sound towards the hallway and then towards the stairs and that's when she sees him. _

_As of yesterday, he'd been a squirming rolling bundle of baby boy and now…well now he's rapidly army crawling his way across her downstairs._

"_Henry," she sighs, her hand settling over her anxiously pounding heart._

_His head turns and he grins at her. "Momma."_

"_You frightened me," she scolds, but she's smiling back at him. She kneels down next to him and pulls him into her arms, holding his body as close against her own as she can manage without suffocating him. She can feel his heart beating against hers. "Don't do that again, okay?"_

_His only reply is another laugh. It's one that she can't help but answer._

* * *

Whale doesn't even bother to try to stop her from leaving the hospital come the next morning. He does offer up a almost frightened reminder that she's still very weak and still quite ill, but she laughs at him.

"Good for you," she sneers as she pulls on a heavy black coat. That she'd woken up to find fresh clean clothes next to her bed is something she doesn't want to think too much about; it likely means that the sheriff had returned to bring them, but she doesn't want to think about Emma.

Not even a little bit.

Whale takes a nervous step back and away from her, a hand lifting up as if to protect himself. "I didn't mean anything by that," he insists.

"Didn't you? Are you trying to tell me, Victor, that you actually care if I live or die?" She laughs harshly, the sound grating her throat.

"No," he admits. "But Henry –"

"Shut up," she hisses, stepping towards him, a hand stretched out towards his throat like she might try to strangle him. He must see the wildness in her dark eyes because he retreats more than a bit, backing up against the wall.

He opens his mouth to speak again then and it reminds her so very much of the helplessness that Emma had shown and dammit why can't she stop thinking of that woman and why can't everyone just stop talking?

Why can't everyone stop pretending like they give a damn how badly hurt she is?

They don't care about her. They never have.

They never will.

Any of them.

And she'll see this whole world burn down before she allows another one of them to throw Henry in her face again. Like they have the right to speak of him. Like they have the right to speak for him.

Her blood boiling – and yes, it feels good and pure, she tells herself, all the while ignoring the reality that it doesn't - she whirls around and in a blast of purple smoke, disappears from the hospital.

When she reappears – outside of her mansion – she collapses to the ground, the world spinning rapidly around her. Thinking that if she tries to move again, she'll end up throwing up everything inside of her, she flops back over on her back, sobbing at she stares up at the gray sky.

* * *

"_Momma, tell me a story," four-year-old Henry requests of her as he looks up at her from his bed, his colorful blankets pulled up around his hips. He's been mildly sick for the last few days, and he really should be sleeping, but she hasn't the heart to deny him much. Certainly not this, anyway._

"_What kind of story, dear?" she asks him as she sits next to him, her hand weaving through his thick brown hair. It's slightly damp and even without thinking about it, she spreads her fingers to work out a tangle she feels._

"_Something with dragons in it," he says, falling back against her chest. He yawns and looks up at her with such trust in his sleepy green eyes. Such faith and belief in her ability to protect and love him._

_It's almost breathtaking. _

"_Dragons, hmm," she chuckles with more than a hint of amusement in the sound. "I think that maybe I have just the story for you. Do you want to hear it?" Her eyebrow lifts up like she's teasing him and he responds accordingly, his head jerking up and down rapidly, his excitement near to bursting. "All right," she nods. "Well a long time ago in a far away kingdom…"_

"_Once upon a time," he corrects with a smile. _

"_Don't interrupt," she says, tickling his ribs._

"_Sorry. Go on."_

"_Once upon a time –" their eyes meet and he nods. "There was a Warrior Queen and there was a…you could say she was a dragon most of the time."_

"_Was she green and scaly?"_

"_Oh, yes, sweetheart. Very scaly."_

"_Cool."_

_She chuckles and then begins to speak. It's perhaps risky to allow for stories of the old world but his need for adventure reminds her of the girl that had once ridden as hard as possible across great green hills and she finds the words to her tale spinning from her lips with ease. It's a wild and swirling story that is half-truth and half-fantasy. Something that would have made Maleficent lose her sanity completely. Whatever there is left of it, anyway._

_But because he's four and trusts his mother completely, it's just a story. _

_A wonderful perfect harmless story where his mom is the great vanquishing Savior and defeater of Evil and he doesn't know just how many truths are buried deep beneath the colorful descriptions of victory and conquest._

_He doesn't know the truth about the so-called Warrior Queen._

_And she prays he never will._

* * *

It's unbelievably wrong to her to be standing away from the funeral like she's some kind of outsider. He's her son and she should be up front.

Protecting him.

But she can just barely stand beneath her own weight and she's in no mood for the looks she's sure to get should she move closer. She's a proud woman and she has no fear of these people, but she doesn't want their sympathy.

They have no right to pity her loss while weeping for their own.

Mostly, though, she doesn't want to see Emma's eyes again.

She doesn't want to bear witness to the broken and lost expression that she can now vividly recall seeing in Emma's eyes because she doesn't care.

After all, this is all Emma's fault.

All she had to do was leave when she'd been told to.

All she'd had to do was let Regina die when she'd been asked to.

Had she done either of those things, Henry would still be alive.

So no, Regina doesn't want to see the pain in Emma's green eyes.

Because no, she doesn't care.

She can hear crying from those gathered around Henry from where she stands, but the wretched sounds mean so little to her because hereyes are locked on the handsome casket. It's so very small and so very terrible and she wants to destroy it and make her son stand up and walk over to her. If there was magic enough to do so, she thinks that she would.

Yes, he might end up as awful as Daniel had but he'd still be…

No, no he wouldn't be anything and if she'd loved Daniel (and she had loved him so very much that sometimes it still hurts to even think of him), her feelings for Henry are somewhere well beyond that.

She's not a selfless woman and the dark emotions in her heart right now are wicked and cruel but the one thing she will not allow is for her baby to be a monster.

He's never going to be hurt again.

She hears motion and sees people moving back and away from the casket.

The funeral is over.

And life goes on.

Only it doesn't.

Not for her.

Because Henry was her life.

"Regina," she hears and her eyes jump up to meet Snow's. "You should have come over," the girl says, so earnest and honest.

"Why? We're not family," Regina replies.

"We are," David insists, coming to stand next to his wife. Emma is still by the casket, her hand settled atop the wood, an expression of utter shock on her pale features. Her eyes are jumping wildly from side to side, like she can't quite believe this is happening. Like she's sure that it's not.

Regina keeps on ignoring her.

Or at least she pretends to.

"It's funny how quickly and effortlessly you use that term," Regina snaps back. "I'm family when you want to be the big compassionate hero, but when you want to be the King, dear, it's awfully simple to want me dead or imprisoned, isn't it?"

David opens his mouth to answer, but Snow silences him with a light hand on his forearm. "We're not going to do this here," she says.

"That's what you're wrong; we're not going to do this at all," Regina snaps back. "Because our business with each other is finally over, Snow. You want to go back to your precious Enchanted Forest with your perfect little family and pretend like your lives are wonderful and blessed? Well go ahead and do it. I don't care what you do anymore. You've won and it's over."

"You think this is winning? You think that's what this is about?" Snow demands, sounding nearly hysterical. "He was my grandson, Regina."

"And you will have others," Regina retorts, her eyes flickering back to Emma. "You'll marry your little girl off or you'll have more children. Either way, you'll have another grandchild and Henry will just be…part of a story."

"That's not fair," David insists. "We loved him, too."

"How easy it is for you," the former queen sighs with a shake of her head. "You love because you breathe. And you never have to fight for it or for what it means. You know that you will always find your way back to each other and things will always work out for you. You'll always win and I will always lose...everything."

"This isn't winning, Regina" Snow says once again, shaking her head in quiet almost frantic desperation. "This is loss. This is…this is grief."

"You don't know the meaning of the word," Regina replies.

"But she does," Snow says, looking over towards Emma. "And she's hurting right now, too so maybe –"

The former queen doesn't give her the chance to finish – won't let her place Emma beside her in their pain. Instead, she brushes roughly past Snow and David, making her way towards the casket.

Towards Henry.

She stands next to Emma, but continues to sharply ignore the devastated and shell-shocked expression on the girl's face.

The one that seems to be promising an oncoming emotional meltdown.

It's not her problem.

She's Snow and David's perfect little girl; they can take care of her and heal her with promises of good always winning and love conquering all.

They can lie to her.

Regina presses a hand against the wood and closes her eyes.

"Henry," she whispers.

But she doesn't cry yet.

Not until everyone – including Emma who had been practically walked away from the casket by her parents - has left and she's alone with Henry.

She's never wanted to be alone, never wanted the pain of solitude.

Not until right now.

When all she wants is her little boy.

When all she wants to do is weep for and with him.

* * *

"_Mom! Mom, help!"_

_She's in the kitchen making dinner when his pained cry rings through the house. The front door slams behind him and then her seven-year-old son is rushing in, covered in mud and the knee of his left pant-leg soaked in blood. _

_She almost has a heart attack on the spot._

_Her mind cycles rapidly and furiously through every bit of reading that she's done on childhood injuries. She tries to tell herself that this is probably nothing serious, but then he's looking up at her with big tear-filled eyes._

"_What happened?" she demands, and her voice is harder than she intends it to be because she's suddenly so damned scared. _

_He flinches away from the tone, and scolding herself inwardly, she desperately wants to reach for him and apologize but then there's blood dripping onto the floor and she feels the fear curl and attack within her gut._

"_Henry," she says again, steel in her tone. "What happened?"_

"_I fell," he says, head down. "I'm sorry."_

"_Fell from what?"_

_He opens his mouth and she knows instinctively that he's about to lie to her – which just makes her feel that much worse because why should he need to – but then he says, "From the tree." He gestures out the window, towards her apple tree, which really isn't strong enough for a boy to be climbing._

_As is evidenced by his bloody pants and his muddy shirt. _

"_Can you lift your leg up?" she asks. He nods and does so, pulling his pants up to reveal what looks like a long but not deep gash. It's bleeding a lot, but it seems to be mostly superficial in nature. "What were you thinking?" she prompts as she starts to clean it, perhaps more roughly than is needed. _

_She's still frustrated and scared and she's letting him know it._

"_It looked like fun," he tells her. "Didn't you ever want to do something fun?" It's a completely childish question, the type kids ask their parents because they don't seem to understand that their mom and dad were once their age, too. It should irritate her because it's somewhat manipulative, but it doesn't because he's right; when she'd been his age, she'd been trying to sneak away from her mother as often as possible so as to get as dirty as she could. She'd been the kid looking for fun and adventure and…_

_Well that hadn't really worked out well for her._

_But Henry isn't her and she's not her mother and well, it's just a cut._

"_You frightened me," she tells him in a low slightly shaking voice, and it occurs to her just often she says this to him and how bad a mother it probably makes her to be as constantly afraid for him as she is. _

"_I know," he says and his expression shows that he actually means what he's saying right now. And he does so because she knows that he sees himself – thanks to words from Graham – as the man of the house. He believes that his job is to protect her and her look says he hadn't done that. "I'm sorry." _

"_I know you are," she leans down and presses a kiss to his now cleaned and bandaged knee – he hadn't even noticed that she'd been doing it and perhaps she hadn't really, either – and then smiles, "And I believe you."_

_He grins in response._

"_But you have to make me a deal, okay?" she presses, leaning back up to meet her sparkling green eyes with her much more serious brown ones._

"_What kind of deal?"_

"_The kind where you promise me you'll be careful. I don't know what…"_

"_I'll be careful," Henry says, effectively cutting her off. "I promise."_

_She closes her eyes and exhales. Opening them again after a long emotional beat that he doesn't recognize for what it is, she says, "Then go change out of those dirty clothes and wash your hands; dinner is almost ready."_

* * *

Her mood melancholy and darkly morose, Regina is almost completely drunk when she hears the loud uneven hammering at the front door of her mansion.

Frankly, it could be a light tap and it'd still be annoying to her.

Rising from her couch awkwardly, a glass tumbler clutched tightly in her hand, she makes her way to the door and yanks it open. And then she laughs, the sound high and cruel. "I should have known you'd show up."

And really, she should have expected this, yes. It's absurd the idea of Emma Swan coming to see her when she has her parents willing to coddle and cuddle her through this heartbreak, but oddly, it feels a bit natural, too.

"Because you know me so well," the blonde retorts, her hand still lifted up as if to knock. She, too, is clearly drunk out of her mind. Though judging by the tear tracks on her face, her emotional state is closer to hurt than anger.

"I know you well enough to know that you can't just do the right thing and just go the hell away. Which is why we're both here now," Regina replies, her lip curling up into a disgusted sneer. "And why my son is not."

"The right thing?" Emma shoots back. "The right thing? That's all I've ever tried to do. I was trying to do right by him and by parents and by you."

"Is this where I'm supposed to cry for you? Is that why you're here on my doorstep? So you can share my pain just like you shared my son?"

She sees the snap in Emma's eyes almost before she feels it; something dark and horrible passes through her wide green eyes and then Emma is shoving forward with both of her hands and violently slamming Regina against the wall opposite the door. Regina hits it with a loud pained gasp, wincing.

"He was my fucking son, too, Regina!" she growls, her hands clutching the shoulders of Regina's shirt and yanking upwards with enough force to tear the fabric."Mine, too!"

And now it's Regina's turn to lose control. "He wasn't," she screams back, her glowing hands surging out to magically throw Emma backwards, thereby putting a few feet of space between the two of them. "You gave him up and I took him in. I chose to love him and you stole that from me."

"I tried to give it back," Emma says, and then she's suddenly sagging to the floor, all of the strength in her legs giving away like they're made of Jello. "I offered him...anything. Everything."

The sudden change in Emma is enough to rob Regina of almost all of her fury. Instead, she feels confusion and perhaps even a bit of fear.

"What?"

"I went to Gold. I tried…I begged him." Emma shakes her head.

"Begged him for what?" Regina demands, though even through her drunken haze, she has a pretty good idea of what Emma had asked for.

It's the same thing she would have asked if she hadn't known better. The same thing that she had once asked Rumple for in regards to Daniel.

"To bring Henry back. To help me turn back time. To make it so I'd never come to town, so he'd never found me." She looks up at Regina, shiny tears racing down her ashen cheeks. She's shaking in a way that Regina has never seen before, completely crumbling in front of the former queen. "I wanted everything to go back to what it was."

"You'd give up what you've found? You'd give up your parents?" Regina asks, tilting her head. "You'd let me have my curse back?" It's another absurd question because Regina herself doesn't give a damn about the curse anymore, but the need to understand Emma right now is strong.

The need to know if this woman is hurting as much as she is right now propels her forward and makes her move towards Emma.

The blonde laughs humorlessly but it sounds almost like she's choking. "I'd give up anything if it meant…" a sob interrupts her words.

"But that's not how it works," Regina says softly. "Because dead is dead and there's not such thing as time travel. We can jump worlds but not time."

"There has to be a way. There has to be."

"There isn't," Regina says dully. "And if there were, don't you think I would have tried it? Don't you think I would give up anything, too?"

"Yes, I know you would," Emma tells her. "But this is my fault and…and there has to be something I can do."

"There's not. He's dead, Emma. He's dead and there's absolutely nothing that either of us can do about it." She has to close her eyes after she says the words because they're not cathartic, they're just soul-shattering.

When she opens her eyes again, she's treated to the horrific visual that is Emma's face screwing up into a mask of unbearable pain as the bitter reality of her helplessness crashes over her. I'm sorry," she gasps. And then there's just nothing left inside of her to hold her up. She crashes to the ground, wrapped in a tight little ball, sobbing desperately into her own arms. Over and over, she keeps saying something that sounds a whole lot like, "I'm so sorry."

Regina Mills has witnessed and experienced a lot of horrific things in her life; she's been through nightmares that are beyond the vivid imaginations of most people. She's even caused more than a few of them.

She knows beyond a doubt that seeing her son's body is beyond all of those nightmares. She knows that it's something that she will never ever get over and she knows that the memory of it will haunt her for the rest of her life.

She thinks that maybe what she's seeing right now will as well.

The woman in front of her is broken. Perhaps as badly as she is.

And though she should be, she's not the least bit happy about it.

She doesn't feel that old surge of vengeful victory. She doesn't feel the vicious curl of fury that had always chased away when the pain.

She just feels…heartbroken.

She takes an unsteady step forward and then another. If she could see herself – if she would look up in the mirror and see what she's doing – she'd probably stop herself because the idea of comforting Emma is absurd.

Because Emma had been right: this is her fault.

Only that's not quite the truth at all, and deep down, Regina knows it. Deep down, she knows that the fault for all of this rests with her and her alone.

Part of her mind hisses at her to remember whom it had been who had lied to her so many times now. Lied about not being someone that Regina had to worry about. Lied about having faith in her. Lied about leaving her to die so that their son could be protected. And then lied about him being alive.

So many lies and yet none of them actually matter anymore.

Awkwardly, and without even a hint of grace, Regina drops down to her knees next to Emma, the wood hard and rough but completely unnoticed. Her hand reaches out for Emma's shoulder and she just wants her to stop making that awful sound because it's not making anything better.

And she doesn't want this pain.

She doesn't want anyone to feel it anymore.

She wonders absently if this is truly Henry's gift to her – that he'd lightened her darkened heart without her realizing it. That he'd altered her soul and made her not desire the devastation and pain of others as she once had.

Or perhaps this is about knowing that the woman who she's now touching understands her grief in a way that no one else ever can or will and she's so very sick and tired of being alone in her pain and hurt.

"Emma," she whispers. "Stop. Please."

But Emma doesn't; she can't. And she keeps crying and shaking until her throat closes up and she's simply whimpering and rocking herself. Until the exhaustion and heartbreak take her and her eyes flicker closed.

Regina would laugh if this situation weren't so horrible.

She waves her hand around and purple smoke covers the Savior's slumped body. She's sure that Emma wouldn't care for being moved by magic, but she's equally certain that once you come to someone's house completely plastered, you lose the right to dictate how they try to take care of you.

Gods, Regina realizes with a start, she's actually taking care of her enemy.

It has to be the alcohol, she muses.

Because apparently being drunk causes Emma to collapse emotionally and alternately permits Regina to find the better person within herself.

She sighs and thinks of the child who she hopes would be proud of her.

Even if only for a few minutes.

Come morning and unfortunate sobriety, she imagines the rage and anger will be back, and she doubts that the better person that she's being right now will be the one that finds its way to the surface.

She doubts that she will be pleased to find Emma sleeping in her house.

That's for tomorrow, though.

For tonight, she uses what's left of her magic and strength and transports Emma and herself up to one of the guest rooms. She covers the shattered Savior up with a warm blanket and then leaves the lights on to help try to chase away the nightmares that are sure to be coming.

* * *

"_Mom?" he says, looking across the room at her. She's sleeping against the hard stone wall of Snow and Emma's apartment – and has been for much of the time that she's been watching over him._

_She stirs when she hears his voice, and immediately comes to, blinking away the exhaustion that's written into her face._

"_Henry," she replies with a too large smile. "Are you all right? Did you have another dream, dear? Were you hurt?" The words rush from her mouth, and as if she's panicking herself, she's up on her feet and across the room._

"_No," he says. "I'm okay. Are you? You look like you have a kink."_

_She chuckles as if to hide her reaction, but he sees something strange sweep across her eyes, something that looks misty. "I'm fine," she assures him. "All I care about is that you are." She reaches for him – hesitates for a brief moment – and then settles her hand over his arm. "I never wanted for this to happen to you. I hope you…I hope you know that."_

"_The dreams because of the turnover you mean. The one meant for Emma." _

_She nods her head slowly, her lips pursing to stop herself from trying to justify her actions. After all, how can you even begin to explain trying to kill your son's birth mother? Instead, she forces a thin smile and waits for him to continue because she knows her son well enough to know that he will._

_And of course, because like his birth mother, Henry can't ever leave well enough alone, he pushes on with, "If Emma had eaten the turnover instead of me, what would have happened to her?" His head is cocked to the side and he's looking at her like he's trying to catch her in a lie._

_So she doesn't even bother to try lying to him this time. "I don't know," Regina admits. "It was supposed to put her in an eternal sleep but…well it's entirely possible that just as her kiss was enough for you…"_

_She trails off and looks away so that he can't see the hurt in her eyes._

_The fear that if it were her instead of Emma who needed a kiss from Henry, it wouldn't be enough to wake her because his feelings wouldn't be._

_Not that she would ever put that kind of weight on him._

"_Do you want Emma back?" he asks her. It's a preposterous question really because of course she doesn't. And he must know that. He must know that she wants things to be as they were, before there was an Emma and before Henry was tied to Snow and David. Back when she was still his world._

_But that time has passed and that's not what he wants to hear from her._

_That's not what someone who is trying to be a better person admits to._

"_I want whatever you want," she offers. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. So yes, I suppose I do want Emma back because it's what you want."_

_And that's the truth, at least._

_His eyes meet hers and he nods. "I believe you," he says._

_It's not much but it still warms her heart because there was a time when she could have said the sky was blue and he would have called her a liar._

_Now he's trusting her with helping to bring home the person he loves the most. It hurts like hell to even think – admit – this, but maybe she becomes a little bit more worthy of him if she's able to fight through this pain._

_Fight through it and do right by him even if she wants to do anything but._

_He deserves it and so for him, she'll make any deal with the devil she must._

_Even if that means saving Emma Swan._

**TBC...**


End file.
